This is a Passive House retro-fit of a pre-1900 six story tenement. The building was adapted to meet the Passive House EnerPHit and Enterprise Green Communities standards. The project team includes the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board and a developer partner BFC Partners and SMJ Development. This NYPH open house tour will also focus on how the firm is implementing Passive House construction and addressing the neighborhood demand for affordable housing. Reduction in energy use is critical to maintaining affordable housing, where residents may already be financially challenged.

Passive House is an international building standard developed in the 1990s by the Passive House Institute of Darmstadt Germany. The firm is committed to building to Passive House standards, reducing building energy use through passive measures and components such as insulation, airtightness, heat recovery, solar heat gains, solar shading and incidental internal heat gains. Passive House buildings are comfortable, affordable and create deep reductions in environmental/carbon footprint.

New York Passive House is an independent not-for-profit organization that facilitates the exchange of information and experiences, among local, national and international practitioners of the Passive House building standard.

Paul A. Castrucci, Architect is an early adapter of Passive House construction having completed R-951, which is New York City’s first Net Zero Capable, Passive House certified residence. The firm has over thirty years of experience in sustainable practices with a focus on residential buildings, arts facilities and community centers. The firm’s body of work reflects the firms commitment to sustainability in design and construction. The materials and building systems the firm employs are selected for their low environmental impact and maximum energy efficiency. The firm values building principles that employ both passive and active strategies to generate energy and significantly reduce energy use. The firm’s projects typically incorporate systems like passive and active solar heating, photovoltaic electricity generation and schemes for natural day lighting and ventilation.

Think about building a net-zero energy home with all its challenge except in remote regions with temperatures dropping to - 60 F for extended periods of time? As part of a graduate research, at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, Asok proposed a protocol that uses delivery of prefabricated homes to build affordable net-zero energy homes for Canada’s northern regions. As part of the research, 1200 homes built in the North since the 1950s were evaluated to study its impacts of energy policies on home. The findings were presented at the 7th International Building Physics Conference in September 2018 in Syracuse, USA.